ASUU Appeals For FG, Governor’s Help Over Missing Professor Of Nuclear Physics

Prof. Olomo

Three months after Prof. James Bolarinwa Olomo of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, went missing, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has appealed to President Goodluck Jonathan, Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola, security agencies and other well-meaning Nigerians to use their good offices to search for the missing Professor of Nuclear and Medical Physics.

The Union which came from Osun State said this at the press conference held for the search of the Professor at the International Press Centre (IPC) in Lagos.

Speaking at the conference, the chairman of ASUU – OAU, Professor Adegbola Akinola said the Professor went to Eket in Akwa-Ibom on October 17th, 2013 by air, as a Radiation Safety Adviser (RSA) to an Oil and Gas Company whose name he did not disclose to them, and lodged at Hotel Farlem where he got missing. All efforts to establish his whereabouts had since proven abortive.

He stressed that they have since reported the matter to the security agencies who are yet to come up with a solution and major hospitals in Eket had also been searched.

According to Akinola, when the alarm was raised by the professor’s secretary on October 21, 2013 that he was yet to come back from his trip and his phone was switched off, they went to the Hotel but the Manager/Attendants told them that they saw him last on October 20, 2013 as he dropped the key to his guest room without checking out and since then, he had not returned.

The Manager said the reason why they did not report the matter to the police when they didn’t see him return, was because they had witnessed similar cases in the past where their guest(s) would go out and return few days or weeks later to apologise.

Chairman of the search committee, Professor Olugbenga Jedege said the 64-year Professor was once missing, about 10 years ago, but noted that happened under a different circumstance, saying the present case was a shocking mystery.

He therefore appealed to anyone with useful information on his whereabouts to contact his colleagues at the OAU or members of his family.